Agriculture faces numerous challenges that are making it increasingly difficult to provide food, materials, and fuels to the world's population. Population growth and changes in diet associated with rising incomes are increasing global food demand, while many key resources for agriculture are becoming increasingly scarce. By 2050, the FAO projects that total food production must increase by 70% to meet the needs of the growing population, a challenge that is exacerbated by numerous factors, including diminishing freshwater resources, increasing competition for arable land, rising energy prices, increasing input costs, and the likely need for crops to adapt to the pressures of a more extreme global climate. The need to grow nearly twice as much food in more uncertain climates is driving a critical need for new innovations.
Today, crop performance is optimized via of technologies directed towards the interplay between crop genotype (e.g., plant breeding, genetically-modified (GM) crops) and its surrounding environment (e.g., fertilizer, synthetic herbicides, pesticides). While these paradigms have assisted in doubling global food production in the past fifty years, yield growth rates have stalled in many major crops and shifts in the climate have been linked to production declines in important crops such as wheat. In addition to their long development and regulatory timelines, public fears of GM-crops and synthetic chemicals has challenged their use in many key crops and countries, resulting in a complete lack of acceptance for GM traits in wheat and the exclusion of GM crops and many synthetic chemistries from European markets. Thus, there is a significant need for innovative, effective, and publically-acceptable approaches to improving the intrinsic yield and resilience of crops to severe stresses.